Chain Marks
 

Is there any particular place in the right chain housing where the right chain tends to hit the case when a tensioner goes bad? I have looked all around,but have not found any obvious drag marks. Pressing down, trying to compress the piston in the tensioner with my thumb, I don't have any real movement, just a tiny amount of seepage of oil out of the weep holes. Thanks.

No one has seen where the chain has rubbed with a failed or weak tensioner on the right side?

There was a discussion of this a few months ago about the chain cover area getting damaged with a worn stretched chain. It was pretty good and went on for a few pages.. It was on the right chain too.

otherwise sorry, I have no experience with a failed tensioner.

Thanks for the reply Ron, hopefully someone who seen the insides of these engines and has seen where the rub marks usually are inside the chain housing will let me know where it seems to rub when a tensioner is failing on the right side. I will keep looking to see if I can find it.

how about an update ?

Guys want to know !

Ronnie, still trying to find out what is wrong. BUT Huricane IVAN is knocking on the door down here in the South, hopefully it will weaken some before it gets here. 24-36hrs. I am trying to batten down the hatches around here, FEMA is predicting 100-120mph wind or more here where I live. Hope I will still have the car, to try to fix it and my house is still here when that bad a$$ storm comes thru.

I recently experienced stretching of the chain (one entire link compared to a new one!). The tensioners were fine.

In this case, I noticed gouge marks on the chains (mostly on the right) but did not see any damage within the housing. I assumed it was from some rough assembly techniques used by previous owner/mechanic. Turns out that the chain was moving so much that it appears to have hit the teeth on the intermediate shaft gear. Small nicks were visible on the edge of some of the gear teeth. This and heavily pock-marked chain ramps were the only sign of damage.

Chains and ramps were replaced and everything is good as new again.

Do you guys recommend replacing all gears including intermediate gears with a chain replacement or just replacing the chain alone is ok?
I know that with motorcycles you should replace all gears/sprockets with a new chain becuase they all wear together.....replacing a chain alone asks for quick wear on all parts when run again and is not recommended. Changing intermediate gears is a real pain and requires complete engine teardown where just a chain replacement can be done with the engine in the car.
Thoughts and data backing up the case or merits for each scenario?